Macroeconomic Forecasting and Structural Change
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to assess whether explicitly modeling structural change increases the accuracy of macroeconomic forecasts. We produce real time out-of-sample forecasts for inflation, the unemployment rate and the interest rate using a Time-Varying Coe±cients VAR with Stochastic Volatility (TV-VAR) for the US. The model generates accurate predictions for the three variables. In particular for inflation the TV-VAR outperforms, in terms of mean square forecast error, all the competing models: fixed coefficients VARs, Time-Varying ARs and the naaive random walk model. These results are also shown to hold over the most recent period in which it has been hard to forecast inflation.Download Info
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Paper provided by ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles in its series Working Papers ECARES with number 2009_020.Length: 29 p.
Date of creation: 2009
Date of revision:
Publication status: Published by:
Handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2009_020
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Keywords: Forecasting; infation; stochastic Volatility; time varying vector autoregression.;Other versions of this item:
- Antonello D'Agostino & Luca Gambetti & Domenico Giannone, 2013. "Macroeconomic forecasting and structural change," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 82-101, 01.
- Antonello D’Agostino & Luca Gambetti & Domenico Giannone, 2010. "Macroeconomic forecasting and structural change," Working Paper Series 1167, European Central Bank.
- D'Agostino, Antonello & Gambetti, Luca & Giannone, Domenico & Giannone, Domenico, 2009. "Macroeconomic Forecasting and Structural Change," Research Technical Papers 8/RT/09, Central Bank of Ireland.
- D Agostino, Antonello & Gambetti, Luca & Giannone, Domenico, 2009. "Macroeconomic Forecasting and Structural Change," CEPR Discussion Papers 7542, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models
- E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
- E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-10-17 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBA-2009-10-17 (Central Banking)
- NEP-ECM-2009-10-17 (Econometrics)
- NEP-ETS-2009-10-17 (Econometric Time Series)
- NEP-FOR-2009-10-17 (Forecasting)
- NEP-MAC-2009-10-17 (Macroeconomics)
- NEP-ORE-2009-10-17 (Operations Research)
References
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